GLEANINGS.
DESTRUCTION OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN CAVE OF KUHLOCK.—Professor Buckland dommunicates to Mr. Richard Taylor, the editor of the Philosophical Magazine,
as accutua of the recent destruction of " the most interesting and curious deposit
of organic remains in Germany, viz. that in the cave of Kiihloch in Franconia, and also of another cave of less importance adjacent to it." In his Reliquin Dihtviane, the learned Professor had given a description and drawing of the cave of Kiiitlock ; some of the principal features of which have now been obliterated—a barbarous German proprietor having removed and mutilated that which Time and the Deluge had spared! Professor Buckland, perceiving that his description of the cave will no longer be found applicable, is naturally anxious to record the fact and time of obliteration ; and these are announced as follows in a letter to him by Mr. Philip Egerton, dated Schaffhausen, 26th June :- " Lord Cole and myself are just returned to Schaffhausen front a three weeks' visit to the antediluvian caverns of Franconia ; and knowing the great interest you feel in their welfare, 1 write to inform you of the melancholy fact of the total destruction of the deposit of bones in the caves of Kithloch and Rabenstein. His Majesty the King of Bavaria having announced his intention to visit Rabenstein, the owner of that castle has thought fit to prepare these two caves for his reeep. Lion; in order to do which, he has broken up the wnole of the floors, pounding the larger stones and bones to the bottom for a foundation, and spreading earth and finer particles to form a smooth surface over them. Conceive our horror on arriving at Kiihloch, at finding thirty men at work, wheeling out the animal earth, to level the inclination of the entrance, by which you have so satis- factorily explained the phenomenon of the absence of pebbles and diluvial loam in this remarkable cavern. There was not a bone to be found there when we arrived ; however, with a little management we contrived to obtain two beautiful fragments of lower jaws of hymna, besides some very good bears' bones, and one ulna that had been broken during the animal's life, and the sharp edges of the fracture rounded off by the absorbents into a smooth stump. We likewise pro. cured from one of the workmen, teeth of a fox, of a tiger, and molar tooth of the right lower jaw of rhinoceros,—all of which he said be picked up in Kiihloch. In the cave of Rubenstein they found very few bones, but a great many old coins* and iron instruments. I am happy to say we also found in the cave of Zahnloch, the large block of stone which you describe as polished by the paws of the ante. diluvian bears ; it was almost concealed • by a pile of earth near the entrance of the side chamber in which it stands. The angles and surface of the block have certainly been rounded by some agent anterior to the formation of its present oat of stalagmite. I broke off this stalagmite in many places, and found the stone in the same state underneath, as in the parts that had not been encased by it. We have brought you a large specimen of it, in order that you may judge for your. self. We worked for six days in Gailenreuth, and were very lucky in finding an entire lower jaw of the Felis spelma, a perfect pelvis of the Ursus spelmus. and a very good collection of hymns, wolf, and fox teeth, besides bear's teeth and bones in abundance. We likewise found an immense quantity of fragments of old sepulchral urns. We found also the same in the caves of Zahnloch and Scharzfehl. At Bonn, we obtained from Professor Goldfuss the tibia of a deer from the care of Sundwick, cracked, and having the marks of hymna's teeth, exactly correspond- ing with those on your tibia of an ox from Kirkdale. We procured also a gnawed rhinoceros bone from the same locality."
* Antediluvian ?
A MOTHER AND TIER CHILDREN, IN THE PLAGUE.—In the village of Careggi, whether it were that due precautions had not been taken, or that the disease was of a peculiarly malignant nature, one after another—first the young and then the old, of a whole family dropped off. A woman who lived on the opposite side of the way, the wife of a labourer, and mother of two-little boys, felt herself attacked by fever in the night ; in the morning it greatly increased, and in the evening the fatal tumour appeared. This was during the absence of her husband, who went to work at a distance, and only returned on Saturday night, bringing hums the scanty means of subsistence for his family for the week. Terrified by the example of the neighbouring family, moved by the fondest love for her chil- dren, and determining not to communicate the disease to them, she formed the heroic resolution of leaving her home and going elsewhere to die. Having locked them into a room, and sacrificed to their safety even the last and sole comfort of a parting embrace, she ran down the stairs, carrying with her the sheets and to. tenet, that she might leave no means of contagion. She then shut the door-with a sigh, and went away. But the biggest, hearing the door shut, went to the win- dow, and seeing her running in that manner, cried out, " Good bye, mother," in a voice so tender, that she involuntarily stopped. " Good bye, mother," repeated the youngest child, stretching his little head out of the window : anti thus was the poor afflicted mother compelled for a time to endure the dreadful conflict be- tween the yearnings which called her back, and the pity and solicitude which urged her on ; at length the latter conquered—and amid a flood of tears, and the farewells of her children, who knew not the fatal cause and import of those tears— she reached the house of those who were to bury her ; she recommended her husband and children to them, and in two days she was no more. " But," added Barbara, " nothing can equal the heart of a mother. You remember that sub- lime speech of a poor woman, on hearing her parish priest relate the hi-fory of Abraham: Oh, God certainly would not have required such a sacrifice of a mother!' "—La Monaca di Mon.za ; translated in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 8.
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